Increasing violence at the global, societal and domestic levels is an alarming phenomenon, as this problem is affecting almost every country.
At the global level, the Middle East has been enveloped in violence and terrorism for over six decades due mainly to Israel’s driving out of the Palestinians from their homeland; and while this violence has significantly subsided in recent years, violence has erupted in other countries in the region such as Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria, where there is an ongoing bloodbath while the world remains silent and oblivious to brutality and innocent loss of lives.
At the societal level, sectarian violence and wars have broken out in several countries such as Somalia, Sudan and Afghanistan etc.
Domestic violence, of course, is a growing problem almost everywhere with women and children being mainly the victims.
In our country in the last few weeks, we have had several disturbing acts of violence including the fatal stabbing of a schoolboy and the beating to death of several spouses, apart from violent robberies where victims were severely brutalised.
But while we are aware of the escalating violence, the more difficult proposition is how to curb this most unfortunate problem which is causing so much trauma, suffering and destruction to society.
Finding solutions to problems necessitate unearthing their cause (s) first, but in some cases that is not an easy task by any means, especially when they are related to the human mind and psyche; the human mind  is perhaps the most complex in the world and therefore most difficult to analyse and understand and change.
So what are some of the probable explanations for the escalating violence at all levels of society?
Some offer greed, poverty, pressures of living in a modern world,  the increasing use of illegal drugs and alcohol, lack of education and proper upbringing of children, showing of violence on TV, lack of role models in society and maybe a combination of all these factors.
Of course all these factors may not fit into every society; as such, each society needs to carefully study, and analyse which of these factors is applicable to it and from there work on a plan of strategies, tactics and methodologies to deal with the situation.
In our society it is clear that alcohol abuse and use of illegal drugs have a clear correlation to increasing violence and perhaps this is a good starting point to work from in the process of curbing violence.
There is no doubt that alcohol abuse and increasing consumption of illegal drugs are contributing to a rise in violent acts and a violent temperament. In fact, the illegal drug problem is not only related to increased violence but rather several others including gang warfare, money laundering, trafficking in persons and associated health problems.
But one thing is non-debatable: that the home is a key factor in helping to prevent or curb any form of negative attitudinal and behaviourial patterns because that is where the first set of attitudinal and behaviourial training begins.
Unfortunately, we have an increasing number of broken homes and therefore the family unit is becoming increasingly unstable. Consequently, many children are not properly cared for and in this scenario do not benefit from a stable upbringing from an early age. In such a situation, material deprivation and emotional stress are good breeding grounds for the manifestation of anti-social patterns of behaviour, including a tendency towards being violent.
It is therefore important that we work towards restoring stable family units, apart from the larger, wider measures needed to curb the increasing violence in our society.